


Fault

by oceania



Category: Stargate - All Series, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-14
Updated: 2010-09-14
Packaged: 2017-10-11 20:27:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/116746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceania/pseuds/oceania
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A disatrous off-world mission leaves Daniel broken-hearted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fault

**Author's Note:**

> Nominated for a 2010 Gatefic award.

** Fault **

Daniel heard the earthquake before he felt it. A low grumble of protest from the ground rolled towards the temple a millisecond before things started to shift beneath his feet.  “Vala!” he shouted over the din and spotted her crouched in an ancient archway, with her hands over her head.  He staggered towards her, sidestepping a huge crack that was forming in the stone floor, just before the room was split in two. His half of the floor thrust several yards above the other in an explosion of dust and mortar. Scrambling on his hands and knees, he edged toward the spot he had last seen her, avoiding the falling pieces of roof and wall as they crumbled around him.  The floor began to undulate wildly and he lay face down on his belly and snaked toward her.  Dust and debris billowed up in mini mushroom clouds, blinding him and filling his lungs. An inert form, that he supposed must be Vala, was dimly visible through the murky air as the quake began to subside. He saw with horror that she lay under a toppled stone pillar. The noise ebbed and rolled away from him and he became acutely aware of the abrupt, and absolute, silence that resonated only with the echo of his screams.

She was dead. He was sure of it. Kneeling beside her, he gazed at her ashen face, slack now and emotionless; a thin river of blood wending its way from the right corner of her mouth, to a crimson puddle in her powdered hair. He felt a sudden compulsion to clean the white dust and blood away. His pack was thirty feet below him and across a five-foot wide rift in the earth so, using his bandana, he began to dab at her face and gently stroke away the blood and dust. He smoothed her hair and refastened her rhinestone barrettes. “There,” he whispered, “that’s better.”

He sat back then, and stared blankly ahead. She was dead. Rage and grief ravaged through him, taking him apart piece by piece until he was sure he would never breathe again. The world narrowed and she was all that he could see, crushed, and mangled--her little sparkly hair clips twinkling defiantly.

With a growl, he flew to his feet and began madly digging her out from beneath the rubble. The pillar lay in three pieces, only the centre of which pinned her to the ground. The outer two were relatively easy to simply roll out of the way and Daniel took a moment to contemplate how he was going to extricate her from under the third. He surveyed what was left of the temple, searching for something he could use as a lever, finally spotting the remains of Vala’s tripod—a single metal leg—ironically the camera was still attached. He stared at it and laughed ruefully. Who the fuck cared about the glyphs anyway? He’d dragged her to this stupid temple, just like all the other fucking temples he’d photographed. And for what? So he could watch someone else he loved die under a mountain of rock?

Using the tripod like a bat, he smashed the camera to smithereens against the last remaining wall. 

Shaking and wheezing, he knelt beside her broken body, gently stroking her cheek. “I can’t leave you this way Vala. I can’t bear it. I have to take care of you. I need to take care of you now.” He gently positioned the battered remnant of the tripod, and with a scream, primal and fury-filled, levered the stone off of Vala’s body. Collapsing beside her, he gathered her shattered body in his arms and wept. 

===============================

She was being rocked.  Surely the earthquake was over.  Strong arms.  So much pain.  Someone was crying.  It was Daniel.  Why was he crying?  She tried to speak but her voice was barely a murmur.  She didn’t recognize it as her own.  “Don’t cry, don’t cry…” she rasped.

“Wha…What?  Vala?”

“Hurts….hurts…”

“Oh my god, you’re alive….Oh Vala…” he choked brokenly.  His chest heaved against her,  “I thought you were dead…I thought I’d lost you.”

“Hurts…”

“I know, I know….just keep breathing…I need to check where you’re hurt….” Daniel gently laid her down again and began to examine her injuries.  No visible broken bones, but the column had fallen across her mid-section which meant internal damage, maybe a crushed pelvis and from the shallowness of her breathing, and the rivulet of new blood on her face—a punctured lung. 

“How bad?” she gasped for breath and a fit of coughing overtook her. Daniel lifted her into his arms so she could sit up a bit. The coughing eventually subsided and her breathing steadied into a high-pitched whistle. Fresh blood had spattered onto Daniel’s jacket and he shuddered inwardly. It was bad. He knew it was really bad.

“Not too bad,” he said tenderly, kissing her softly on the top of her head. “It’ll be okay.”

“You lie,” she whispered.

“SG-11 will find us and if not, they’ll send a rescue team when we don’t check in….not to worry….” She began to cough again and then was silent. Her breath was no longer ragged, and Daniel was certain she was dead. He clamped down against his rising panic and felt for a pulse. It was still there, barely. “Hold on Vala….please” he stroked her forehead. “I need you.”

“Dan..iel..” She was barely able to form the word.

“Sshhhh darling, don’t talk,” he soothed.

“Need to tell you….”

“Ssshhh….” 

“No, need to tell you before…before I …”

 

A single tear slid silently down Daniel’s grime covered cheek, “Ssshhh…you can tell me later Vala, rest now.”

“Life’s too short,” she groaned as she tried to reach up to touch his face. “I’m sorry I never told you…”

“You need to stay still sweetie. You know, ‘a little less talk, and a little more shut the hell up…” he unsuccessfully stifled a sob.

“Okay, you talk then.” A strained half-smile turned into a wince as pain gripped her again. “Hurts….hurts…” she whimpered and then closed her eyes. 

“Vala…stay with me, stay with me okay?” She moaned in response. “Okay, what can we talk about…let’s see…well, did I ever tell you about the time I first met Chaka? I probably saved my life with a chocolate bar and a game of toss the goa’uld head…” Daniel continued to tell the story for the better part of an hour. Vala stayed awake, periodically smiling weakly at him or grimacing in pain. Blood continued to trickle out of her mouth. 

Daniel concluded the story just as a new fit of coughing overwhelmed her. As she stilled, and Daniel eased her back against him, she laughed, or rather she smiled and made a small chuckling sound, “Always, so damn nice….no wonder Chaka….” She began to choke again, a frantic gurgling sound followed by a spray of crimson.

“Oh fuck,” Daniel ground out through clenched teeth, his fear impossible to honey over with words and soothing caresses anymore.

“I’m dying,” she mouthed into his chest. He shushed her and kissed the top of her head again. “S’okay Daniel…not your fault…”

It was his fault. He’d dragged her on this pointless mission because he had become so accustomed to her company that he didn’t feel quite right without it. Didn’t feel quite _whole_ on his own anymore. “I’m sorry Vala; I shouldn’t have forced you…”

“Wanted to…always wanted to be near…” her voice was wet and he could hear rather than see her life dripping onto his sodden shirt. “Loved you…always.” She slumped against him. Daniel gave himself over to grief and silently wept.

Hours later, or maybe it was only a few moments, he was shaken out of his despair by Sam’s voice shouting in his ear. He hadn’t even realized he still wore his earpiece. “Daniel….Daniel….do you copy?”

“Yeah…” he answered weakly. 

“Where the hell are you? Is Vala with you?” 

He tried to calm himself, but the anguish in his voice was clear, “Yeah, she’s with me.”

He was vaguely aware of some talk about the _Hammond_ and beaming and before he registered, he was sitting on the floor of the ship--still clutching Vala. 

The next few hours were torture. Physically, he was seriously injured himself, a deep laceration across his thigh had barely missed the femoral artery, but he required too many stitches to count; he dimly heard the nurse commenting about hemming curtains. 

He had also broken his arm. There was a certain amount of hushed talk about compound fractures and the like. He barely registered any of it. Vala was gone.

===============================

There are as many different kinds of pain as there are grains of sand in an hourglass. There’s the kind of pain that sears through your body like a whip, sharp intensity, a momentary blow that recedes completely before lashing out again and again. There’s the kind of pain that burrows into you like a spoon, the kind children scrape relentlessly into a sundae glass, dragging out every bit, grating and smashing into you, until you are empty.

There’s the kind of pain that crawls into your body and settles in to hibernate, an endless ache that periodically wakes and grumbles or bites. There’s the kind of pain that randomly zings through--harsh, violent and merciless. There are many species of pain. Grief is the most ferocious.

He was suffocating; an overwhelming bulk of despair had strangled his hopes.  Grief settles into the heart, oppressing, pressing its advantage. Grief begins in an instant; it silently pounces; dread consumes your soul as you fall; grief pins you to the ground, paralyzing your will. When you finally revive enough to struggle, it’s too late: you’ve been swallowed alive. Daniel now resided in its belly. 

“She’s gone,” he murmured to no one in particular. “I couldn’t save her.”

============================

“Daniel?” Sam spoke in hushed tones from the foot of his bed.

He sighed deeply and forced a thin smile, “I can’t…”

“We lost SG-11,” she said flatly. “All of them.”

“So I’m the lone survivor; ironic given the number of times I’ve been killed.”

“Not the lone survivor Daniel…”

“What?” Daniel struggled to sit up sending a jolt of scorching pain through his right arm. “She died. I watched her die.”

“Vala’s out of surgery but she has a long road ahead of her and she isn’t out of the woods yet, but she’s alive Daniel.”

Daniel slumped back onto the bed, covering his face with his forearm. He struggled to maintain his composure and failed entirely. Sam swallowed hard; she’d never seen Daniel like this: was it grief or relief that had rendered him so unrestrained and raw? She debated giving him some privacy but abandoned that notion the moment she realized that he was, in fact, hyperventilating. “Shit! Can I get a little help here?” she shouted. As the nurse put the oxygen mask in place, she tried to soothe her tormented friend. ‘Daniel, try to relax…calm down…it’s okay…just breathe.”

He stilled at last.

After a few moments, he pulled the mask from his face and spoke, his voice tentative and uneven, “Is she awake?”

“Not yet, too soon. They had to remove her spleen and most of her ribs are broken, one punctured her right lung. She lost a lot of blood, but then so did you.”

“Guess so, I never noticed.”

“You didn’t know that you had a 15 inch tear in your thigh and a bone sticking out of your arm? God Daniel….”

“When can I see her?”

“Daniel, you’re barely conscious yourself. Rest. We’ll be back home in an hour or so. She won’t be awake for hours, maybe not even today.”

Daniel sighed, “Okay, gonna sleep now…”

He awoke in a different bed. “Vala!” he screamed as he scrambled out of the infirmary bed, only to fall flat on his face when his leg gave out under his weight. 

Strong arms lifted him up and back onto the bed. He was in the SGC. When had that happened? He hated sedatives. “Daniel,” the voice was vaguely familiar. “You’ve got to lie still.” It was Carolyn Lam.

“Okay okay…” Daniel grimaced, “but I have to know…”

“She’s fine Daniel, better than anyone expected. She’s right here actually.” Carolyn opened the curtain between the two beds. Vala lay inert on the bed, hooked up to all the machines that Daniel had known only too well over the years. 

“She’s so pale,” he murmured. 

“She lost a lot of blood. At least 2 quarts. We transfused her as soon as you both beamed in, although she was given 2 units during the surgery on the _Hammond_.” 

Daniel wanted to say something sarcastic, like ‘waaaay too much information’ but all he could muster was, “Oh.” He reached through the bedrail with his left hand and tried to reach her. He needed to touch her, feel the warmth of her. “Please,” he implored. Carolyn silently pushed his bed against Vala’s and dropped the rails on both. Daniel sighed and gently took Vala’s limp hand in his.

Carolyn cleared her throat of the rising emotion and croaked, “If you need me…” She waved her hands towards the call button and wordlessly pulled the curtain around them. If Daniel had been focused on anything other than the steady rise and fall of Vala’s chest, he would have heard her stifled sob as she did so.

Vala was awake for several moments, before she opened her eyes. Enveloped in the cotton of morphine and warm blankets, she smiled and sighed in contentment. “Mmmm…” she tried to stretch. Her arms were both held down and her eyes flew open in a panic. The array of tubes and wires weighed down the right arm. She looked at her left hand. Realization dawned. “Daniel,” she breathed, softly squeezing his hand, “my Daniel.”

“If you’ll have me,” he whispered and brought her fingers to his lips. “I’m sorry…”

“Told you already, not your fault.”

“I thought I’d lost….” the words caught in his throat. 

“Sshhh…I’m not going anywhere. I love you, remember?”

“Yeah, I seem to recall something like that being said but you passed out so….”

“So?”

“So I never got to tell you,” Daniel paused and struggled to keep his emotions in check, at least until he got the words out.

“Tell me what?” she smiled wickedly. Daniel couldn’t see her face but he could hear the cheekiness in her voice and laughed in spite of himself.

“I love you too.”  His words hung in the air over them for a long moment.

“Of course you do darling,” her voice silken despite the surroundings. “You always have. You’re just a little stuck on dumb sometimes that’s all.”

He laughed a little too heartily and groaned in pain, “Better late than never?” He stroked her inner arm suggestively.

Vala’s breath hitched as desire thrilled through her, despite the pain. “God, yes darling. Now go to sleep. We have some healing to do. I have plans for you and I’m awfully tired of waiting.”


End file.
